head to head · open source
Hexclave vs webauthn
Hexclave has 6,861 GitHub stars, 522 forks, 65 open issues and last shipped yesterday. webauthn has 612 stars, 60 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. Hexclave leads on adoption by 1,021% (6,861 vs 612 stars). Hexclave is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; webauthn is written in TypeScript under MIT. Hexclave has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, webauthn 10%. Hexclave was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (authentication, passkeys), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Hexclave | webauthn | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 6.9K | ★ 612 |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-22 | 2026-05-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 522 | ⑂ 60 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Hexclave if
- You weight community size — 6.9K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick webauthn if
- You want the webauthn feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and webauthn fits your workflow better
About Hexclave
Hexclave is an open source user infrastructure platform written in TypeScript and distributed under a license the repository metadata lists as NOASSERTION, while the README badge states MIT / AGPLv3. It describes itself as handling everything around a product's users: authentication, teams, payments, emails, analytics, and more. The project lives in the JavaScript and TypeScript ecosystem, shipping SDKs for Next.js, React, and plain JavaScript, and it is positioned against hosted identity and user management services such as Auth0 and Clerk, both of which appear in its topic list.
read the full Hexclave overview →
About webauthn
The @passwordless id/webauthn library is an open source, dependency free TypeScript helper that wraps the WebAuthn protocol so passkey registration, authentication and verification take only a few lines of code, and it is aimed at web developers who want passwordless sign in in the browser and on the server without hand writing the protocol.
read the full webauthn overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Hexclave or webauthn more popular?
Hexclave has 6,861 GitHub stars and webauthn has 612. Hexclave has the larger community by that measure.
Are Hexclave and webauthn free?
Both are open source. Hexclave has no licence declared in this registry, and webauthn is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Hexclave and webauthn?
Hexclave is written in TypeScript and webauthn in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Hexclave or webauthn?
Choose Hexclave if you want the larger community (6,861 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose webauthn if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.